In March 2006, a new version of a web services policy framework (WS-Policy Framework V1.2) was published (See http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy/ for more details of this framework) that defined various aspects of a policy framework. The Web Services Policy Framework (WS-Policy) provides a general purpose model and corresponding syntax to describe the policies of a Web Service. WS-Policy defines a base set of constructs that can be used and extended by other Web services specifications to describe a broad range of service requirements and capabilities.
The entire WS-Policy terminology and hierarchy is applicable to sensor-based policies. In fact, a lot of theoretical work exists for a sensor policy framework system including DARPA (DAML, CoABS, CoAX), Nomads (Oasis and Spring) and KAoS. However, no one has developed a productizable and scaleable sensor-based policy system. The theoretical work typically provided a generalized implementation and could not be scaled for productization. It would be desirable to provide an in-network, in-stream, real-time intrusive content analysis as sensor data moves through a system and it is to this end that the present invention is directed.